Poor ticket sales threaten Headingley's future

Headingley's future as an international venue has been the subject of much discussion in recent years, with a combination crowd behaviour and poor ticket sales raising questions as to whether Leeds deserves to be retained as a major venue.

The argument for it being given more time to turn things around will hardly have been helped by the news that only 6,600 out of 17,000 tickets have been sold for next week's NatWest Series match between England and Zimbabwe. It had been hoped that the prospect of seeing Michael Vaughan becoming the first Yorkshireman to lead England out at Headingley for more than 30 years might have boosted sales.

It is not that there is a lack of interest in an area regarded as the hotbed of English cricket - last week more than 10,000 watched Yorkshire play Nottinghamshire in the Twenty20 Cup. But international matches have been attracting poor crowds for some time, and the emergence of new venues such as Riverside in Durham and the Rose Bowl in Southampton has further weakened the case for keeping games at Headingley.

Ray Illingworth, the former England and Yorkshire captain, said that the Leeds authorities only had themselves to blame. "Punters here are not stupid," he told the Mirror newspaper. "They are not going to pay good money to watch a mismatch, and Zimbabwe looked a poor side in the Test series. Maybe their win at Trent Bridge the other day will help shift a few tickets."

There is no doubt that Zimbabwe arepoor box office, and the increasing number of international matches crammed into the summer is another factor. Yesterday, Gloucestershire chief executive Tom Richardson said that the England-Zimbabwe match at Bristol on July 6 was not sold out.

But what really incensed Illingworth was the revelation that Yorkshire are planning on charging honorary life members - which include most great Yorkshire players from the past - £75 to attend August's Test against South Africa. "The club must be in a bad way if they have to resort to that," he said. "Is that how you deserve to be treated after giving 25 years' service as a player or manager?"

Another deeply upset by the plan is Geoff Boycott, who is recovering after overcoming throat cancer. ""This great club is a way of life for many people but it's being run like a supermarket. Cut costs, a penny off this, a penny off that. A lot of goodwill is being lost from people who have given Yorkshire great service. The heart and soul is being ripped out."

Yorkshire are more than £6 million in debt and announced a record loss of £1.3 million last year.

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